An indication that our priorities are all screwed up?

erik_kosberg · #1 02-03-2002, 04:34 PM

Two prices noted today:
$1.13 = 1 gallon of gasoline
$3.29 = 1 gallon of milk

What’s wrong with that picture? Milk (a renewable resource) comes out of cows and gets shipped relatively short distances. Petroleum (a non-renewable resource) comes from (often deep) wells and gets transported large distances.

**MrsNormanMaine**[$] · #2 02-03-2002, 05:05 PM

One pound boneless chicken breast $3.29

One pound Trident class submarine $1,346.79

Which would you rather feed your family?

MNM

rich2003dm · #3 02-03-2002, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by erik_kosberg
Two prices noted today:
$1.13 = 1 gallon of gasoline
$3.29 = 1 gallon of milk

What’s wrong with that picture? Milk (a renewable resource) comes out of cows and gets shipped relatively short distances. Petroleum (a non-renewable resource) comes from (often deep) wells and gets transported large distances.

Couldn't we just NOT pay the cows?

What the hell do they know?

If they complain, or go on strike or something...hamburger.

Rich (who always gets right to the heart of a problem)

vonboob · #4 02-03-2002, 05:20 PM

Gas does not need to pass hygiene standards. Milk, besides being for human consumption (would you buy it from a underground tank pumped to some 10gallon container?) has limited shelf life. So does chicken; nuke subs on the other hand...

**pluckyduck** · #5 02-03-2002, 05:25 PM

Wading into something I know nothing about,

....

Don't we have price supports for milk? Isn't there some kind of protection built in there so dairy farmers get a minimum?

Pardon me if my ignorance is showing,
Andrea

Dani257 · #6 02-03-2002, 05:37 PM

I think Rich has the right idea

kurt_messick · #7 02-03-2002, 07:34 PM

Would the car go three times as far on a gallon of milk?

**thinkerlady**[$] · #8 02-03-2002, 09:21 PM

How about the price of a loaf of bread???? On sale today, I paid $2.79. I don't even know what the real price is.

realtraveller · #9 02-03-2002, 10:18 PM

Milk is priced artificially high because of government price supports. So is sugar, in fact so much so that the candy companies are moving out of the U. S. Life Savers can't afford to produce their candy in Holland, Michigan anymore so they're moving out.

frazzledspice · #10 02-03-2002, 10:49 PM

In Arkansas, my last gallon of gas was $.90 (Sam's Club.)

My last gallon of milk was $2.42 (Wal-Mart.)

Things are expensive up there in Minnesota.

On the other hand, we have to PAY for our ice, either through our refrigerator costs or at the store. That's one free natural resource you have in abundance.

(Yeah, I live in Arkansas, but give me credit for trying to take life's lemons and make lemonade.)

jenninca · #11 02-04-2002, 07:58 AM

I don't know what it is, but milk has been on sale for $1.99 a gallon at Kroger ever since I moved to Dallas in July. The prices everywhere else are $2.49 to $3.49 a gallon. You can bet I buy most of my milk at Kroger.

Cindy

**pluckyduck** · #12 02-04-2002, 08:38 AM

Couldn't stand my ignorance anymore and I did a little research. The whole milk price controversy is a big deal.

Quote:

In the past, the goal of federal policy was to encourage farmers to milk cows all over the country, to ensure a nationwide supply of fresh milk. This was the point of the "Eau Claire system," which boosts prices for dairy farmers in rough proportion to their distance from the dairy capital of Eau Claire, Wis. And since price supports can lead to overproduction, the government has often stepped in to buy surplus butter, cheese and even dairy herds -- $17 billion worth during the 1980s.

Pros and cons of price supports listed here.

Did you know there is a milk cartel?

PBS looks at "The Milk Story"

It goes on and on and on. Just type "milk price supports" in Google and you'll have a few weeks worth of reading.

Andrea
whose DH always buys the milk

poseidon · #13 02-04-2002, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenninca
I don't know what it is, but milk has been on sale for $1.99 a gallon at Kroger ever since I moved to Dallas in July. The prices everywhere else are $2.49 to $3.49 a gallon. You can bet I buy most of my milk at Kroger.

Cindy

Here in Colorado, our Kroger stores are called King Soopers (same company). A gallon of milk costs $2.49. A gallon of gas costs $1.159.

Since I don't drink milk, the prices really don't affect me much, so I guess I'm not shocked and don't really care.

cristina1 · #14 02-04-2002, 10:35 AM

I think it would be more economical for me to just go and buy a cow. We spend a minimum of $100 a month on milk alone. Between the kids and my hubby, we use at least a gallon of milk a day. We are like a freaking store - at any given time we have up to four gallons in the fridge.

Around here the cheapest I have found milk is $2.50 a gallon. Gas is somewhere around 1.20 a gallon - I rarely go to the gas station myself these days, but rather make hubby do it. (Too cold to stand out there and pump it.......lol.)

poseidon · #15 02-04-2002, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by cristina1
I think it would be more economical for me to just go and buy a cow. We spend a minimum of $100 a month on milk alone. Between the kids and my hubby, we use at least a gallon of milk a day. We are like a freaking store - at any given time we have up to four gallons in the fridge.

Around here the cheapest I have found milk is $2.50 a gallon. Gas is somewhere around 1.20 a gallon - I rarely go to the gas station myself these days, but rather make hubby do it. (Too cold to stand out there and pump it.......lol.)

LESSON LEARNED FROM A FORMER HORSE OWNER: It is never cheaper to purchase something that eats.

Ever price out hay?

vonboob · #16 02-04-2002, 12:00 PM

Look at it this way: you are not only getting the milk but also a stylish self-propelled lawnmower and auto-fertilizing machine...

realtraveller · #17 02-04-2002, 01:29 PM

Did you all know that California produces more milk than Wisconsin. But according to my latest "California Lawyer", no more dairy farms are being permitted due to environmental regulations. Apparently, one cow produces as much (ahem) waste matter as 20 people and the runoff from the dairies is very polluting.

So we're getting more people, fewer dairy cows and continued governmental price supports. I won't be surprised when milk goes to $5 per gallon.

frazzledspice · #18 02-04-2002, 01:34 PM

Cristina, have you tried mixing powdered with regular?

I have never had the need to do so, but, growing up, my best friends came from families of 8 kids.

They usually drank powdered milk straight, but told me that if you mixed powdered with regular you couldn't tell the difference.

If you mixed powdered with whole milk you'd get 2%.

I always keep a small box of powdered milk in my house in case I run out of milk. If I know I'm going to run out, I usually make a quart of powdered when I have about a pint of regular milk left. No one has ever complained.

cristina1 · #19 02-04-2002, 11:44 PM

Quote:

LESSON LEARNED FROM A FORMER HORSE OWNER: It is never cheaper to purchase something that eats.

LOL......yeah, all I need is another thing around that eats. Worse than just feeding it - what goes in must come out.

Never priced out hay though. When I had my horse, we used to all go out in the field and bale our own.

Quote:

Cristina, have you tried mixing powdered with regular?

I never tried powdered milk for drinking. I had a few recipes that called for it, and that is all I ever used it for. I know my kids well enough though that they wont drink it. They wont even drink 2%.

CurtisEdmonds · #20 02-05-2002, 12:56 AM

It's important to keep in mind, though, that we are in a market economy. Milk costs what milk costs because that is what people will pay for it. If milk were to cost more, people would either pay for it, or drink soy milk or drink Dr Pepper.

Likewise, gasoline costs what gasoline costs because that is what people will pay for it.

The idea that one commodity "should" cost more than another commodity because it is more socially valuable is utterly wrongheaded. Green chile enchiladas are a "better" meal than caviar; they taste better and are better for you. But caviar still costs more, because people are willing to pay more for it. The idea that caviar should be cheaper than green chile enchiladas because it is an (arguably) "inferior" food product is nonsense. (So is the Eau Claire system and the Northeastern milk cartel and suchlike, but at least that's government silliness and not the dangerous kind.)

Things cost what things cost. That's a natural law.

And powdered milk sucks.

erik_kosberg · #21 02-05-2002, 12:39 PM

Quote:

It's important to keep in mind, though, that we are in a market economy.

We're not really a market economy, we're a quasi-market economy. The federal and state governments have a long history of intervening in markets directly and indirectly to influence prices. This goes back to before the Democratic or Republican parties existed. Government has long picked winners and losers through legislation that favors one industry over another (e.g., government investment in building the lock and dam system on the Mississippi River had the effect of reducing the price of water transport at the expense of land transportation). Fiscal policy has influenced what products people "should" consume (e.g., extra taxes for alcohol and tobacco). These governments interventions are not an aberration, they're the norm. There was even a long period when the government fixed the price of money by officially pegging gold at $35 an ounce.

realtraveller · #22 02-05-2002, 12:46 PM

Yes, we should be a market-driven economy but we're not. If the price of milk got so high that people cut way back, the dairy farmers would scream, the government would pay them to produce milk and dump it and then subsidize milk purchases for the poor.

A lot of farm products are priced at non-market high prices. Take sugar for example. Because of intense lobbying by the sugar industry in certain states, sugar is priced higher than market. As a result, candy manufacturers are moving their production to other countries to take advantage of cheaper sugar prices costing Americans jobs. So the sugar farmer gets the benefit and the candy worker gets the pink slip.

CurtisEdmonds · #23 02-05-2002, 06:00 PM

It's still a market economy; the government is part of the market. The difference is that the government can't be trusted to make efficient, rational decisions within that economy.

Not that I can be trusted to make those decisions, either, as anyone who looks at my Visa bill or my ebay account can testify. But I don't have the same influence on the market that the government does.